


Third Time's The Charm

by theweddingofthefoxes



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Absolute fluff, College AU, M/M, Praise Kink, benarmie, minor descriptions of dental work, touch starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13813746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes
Summary: Ben and Armie haven't been dating for very long, but maybe things will get more interesting on their third date. Ben's just hoping Armie won't think his praise kink or desire to be touched are weird.





	Third Time's The Charm

The morning of a date is as good a time as any to get a dental cleaning, Ben supposes. There’s no better way to be assured that there’s nothing in his teeth when Armie comes to pick him up. Ben rarely gets cavities or anything like that, so this appointment is probably not going to be much of a big deal. He just hopes his mouth stops hurting by that evening.

His phone’s running out of battery, so instead of checking Facebook, Ben tries to entertain himself with whatever’s around the waiting room. The dentist, the one Ben has been seeing since middle school, is an Evangelical Christian, so there’s both a children’s Bible and an adult Bible sitting on the side table. A _Highlights_ magazine and, bizarrely, a copy of _Glamour_ are both sitting on the chair next to him. Where’d the _Glamour_ come from? A nice-looking, brunette English movie star smiles out from the cover, her teeth as white and straight as the posters by the reception desk that advertise Invisalign. To her left, a subhead asks, “Should you sleep with him on the first date? Our readers weigh in!”. 

The idea is unimaginable to Ben -- not because he’s protecting his virtue or anything like that. His dentist wouldn’t be happy to hear it, but he’d be more than happy to put out on a first date. But finding anybody who’d want to...well, that’s a different story. Ben has had a good smattering of dates throughout his first two years of college, but not really much in the way of sex, and he worries that the more he thinks about it, the more he gets hung up on how _behind_ he is. Worse, he thinks, the ideal first date wouldn’t even be sexual, just like -- plenty of kissing. Touching, and praise, and compliments….but even thinking it feels selfish and weird, childish, maybe. He doesn’t know for a fact how much more experienced Armie is, but he bets it’s a lot. So Ben nudges the _Glamour_ aside and plays the Spot the Difference game in the _Highlights_ magazine until his name is called. 

“How are you doing?” the dental assistant wants to know once he’s settled in the chair, of course waiting to ask until her fingers are halfway down his throat. This isn’t the sort of tender touch he’s after, but beggars can’t be choosers, he guesses. 

“Good. Got a date tonight,” Ben offers, garbled.

“A date? Does she go to your college?”

Ben resists the urge to roll his eyes at the assumption it’s a girl, but coming out to the conservative woman who’s sticking sharp instruments into his gums holds no appeal for him. “Mmhm,” is all he says. 

“Well, I hope you have a wonderful evening.”

He’s hoping the same, though probably not imagining whatever she is. The first two dates with Armie were nice -- really nice. He can tell Armie is into him, even though things are going slowly. Slow and steady, that’s what wins the race, right? Armie always wants to show him the places he likes and talk about how much he likes them -- he always sounds so excited, not bored and dry like he does in class. And Armie likes to pay for him, too. There’s something a little bit thrilling about an older guy paying for you, even if he’s only older by eighteen months. It still counts.

The first time, they went to a movie, and the second time, they went out to a Japanese restaurant where Ben had dared to try eel for the first time. “It’s good!” he’d said, and Armie had just smiled his smug cat smile. 

“I knew you’d like it,” he had answered, and then he ordered another roll for them to share. Gotten another beer. Had let Ben sample it. Ben doesn’t have a fake ID, and he’ll be 21 in two months, so what’s the point? Beer tastes like shit anyway. 

So. No kiss yet. But why would Armie keep asking him out if he didn’t want to, at some point? Armie had gotten just a little tipsy at the restaurant and had put his arm around Ben’s waist while they waited for their Uber back to campus. “You’re built like a marble column,” Armie had murmured into Ben’s hair, missing his ear a bit.

“Not a brick shithouse?”

“I’ve never seen a brick shithouse.”

“Fair enough.”

Ben is _still_ reeling from being held that way, clung to so affectionately. Everything Armie did was absolutely effortless, from the way he poured his beer to the way he shoved his glasses up his nose, shook back a single loose strand of hair that had escaped. Everything…

Just as Ben expects, the dental appointment goes without a hitch. No cavities. Sometimes the force and noise of the cleaning implements makes him wince, but for the most part, he’s free to daydream about how this date might go, if he ignores the taste of blood in his mouth. When he’s done, just for fun, he steals a sticker that announces SAY YOUR ABCS WHILE YOU BRUSH out of the bin and sticks it to his shirt. 

He laughs to himself when he sees, on his way out, that someone’s thrown the _Glamour_ in the trash.

* * *

Usually, Armie is extremely precise about telling Ben details. There is never a moment of the day that Ben can’t find out exactly what Armie’s doing. If Ben texts him “What’s up?”, the answer is usually something like, “I’ll be at the library until 5, and then my brother and I are going to get dinner at 5:30. I expect to be home by 7.” It’s remarkably pedantic, but also really cute, and it’s weirdly reassuring. Should they continue _going steady_ , Ben’s not exactly going to have to wonder what Armie’s doing or where he is.

But today is already a little different. He’s given Ben the time to come to his apartment, but has revealed no further details. When he tells Ben the restaurant they’re going to, for instance, Ben can check the website and see if it’s T-shirt or blazer attire, but now he is venturing into the unknown, so he opts for his least wrecked pair of jeans and the plain black t-shirt he’s been wearing. It’s not like going to someone’s apartment is black tie, right? Not even Armie’s.

He’s been here a few times, mostly to study for the philosophy class they have together. Armie’s about to graduate, and took the class just to be sure he had enough credits -- “This is just a fluff class, you know,” he’d said, completely seriously. Ben took it as a gen ed, just so he could get it over with and focus solely on his art classes, and had hated every second of it until he found himself talking to Armie, and then working on the homework with him. Then, two weeks ago, Armie had asked him to go to that movie.

“To study?” Ben had asked, dumbfounded.

“No, Ben,” Armie had said, rolling his eyes. “Because I’d like to go see it with you.”

He was smiling, though, in a way he couldn’t hide. 

And then he’d leaned on him, outside of the restaurant. Told him he was a marble column.

Ben’s mouth is watering, wondering. 

No studying here, at the apartment, not tonight. Armie’s books are neatly hidden away, and something in the kitchen smells good -- sweet, some kind of dessert, and a vaguely smoky smell just beneath that. “What are you making?” Ben wants to know, hoping he can pick up on some cues as to what Armie has planned. 

“Cookies. The kind that even I can’t fuck up. They’re supposed to make your whole house smell good.”

“I think I heard somewhere you do that if you’re trying to sell your house,” Ben says, following him past the dollhouse-sized kitchen into the living room. “Are you expecting, uh, prospective buyers?”

“No, I just already burned the dinner I made.” Armie says this with his usual graceful candor, but Ben follows his gaze towards the balcony, where a black garbage bag is sitting, an eyesore, stuffed behind the deck chair out of shame. “It was going to be chicken marsala. But it didn’t work, so I supposed I’d wait until you got here so we could order something.” He sighs. “Well, maybe these will turn out better. I’ve never been that good of a cook, but how hard can it be to fuck up cookies?”

Ben smiled. “You don’t have to cook just for me.”

“Well, I’d like to. We can’t eat takeout every day.”

“We already do.”

Armie scoffed, but there was something soft and kind about it. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“And you’re feeding me cookies now, when I just got my teeth cleaned and everything.”

“Is that where you got this?” Armie peeled the sticker, which Ben had forgotten all about, off Ben’s shirt. “I trust you can remember to say your ABCs while you brush without help.” He stuck it to his own shirt, pleased with himself. “How do I look?”

“Great. You always looks great.”

“Flatterer,” Armie accuses, unable to hide his pleasure. “You’re one to talk, you know, when you look like a fucking dream every time I see you--Ben?”

Something vulnerable must have shown itself in Ben’s expression, something soft and painful as a picked scab. “Ben, wait, did I say--?”

“No--yes--wait, okay.” Ben blinks a few times, trying to bring himself back to reality. “I just -- when you say things like that, wow. Nobody ever says things like that about me.” The third date is far enough to reveal such things, right? It’s not that intense, he’s not crying or anything. It’s just so dizzying to be so _complimented_. Armie looks relieved, enthralled, even.

“You’ve got to be joking. Ben, you’re absolutely gorgeous--I suppose the only reason everyone isn’t always telling you that is because they’d have to deal with _me_.” Armie swung his leg over Ben’s waist so he could settle himself in Ben’s lap, and Ben nearly jolted at how sudden and how right it felt. Armie took notice of that, too, and paused, his hands on Ben’s shoulders. “I’m assuming this is new for you.”

“New, yeah.” Ben couldn’t help but flush a bit. _He knows I don’t know what the hell I’m doing…_ “I mean, I haven’t...god, I’m sorry, I’m just glad-- you know, that you like being so close.”

“Of course I like being so close,” Armie hums, pressing a kiss to Ben’s neck. Ben tips his head back so that Armie can get better access. “I’m going to teach you, Ben, just how pretty you are.”

Ben swallows hard, his vision swimming. He’s furious at himself for feeling like he’s going to cry, since it’s only been a few minutes since he arrived. He can’t already be such a baby….but then Armie’s hands are moving up to his cheeks, his thumbs brushing Ben’s lips. “Do you believe me?” Ben can only nod, but that’s enough for Armie. “Will you tell me to stop if you’re unhappy?” he goes on.

Again, Ben nods. “But, god, I don’t know if there’s anything you can do that can make me unhappy,” he adds. 

“Well. I’m not sure about that. Maybe there’s something I can do that would make you particularly happy?” He voice goes up at the end, a clear invitation. Still, Ben hesitates. Should he offer up the daydreams that he had in the dentist’s chair? Would Armie laugh? He butts the palm of one of Armie’s hands with his forehead, pressing close, the way Armie’s spoiled cat does. “I guess, uh. It won’t surprise you to know I like--praise?”

He waits for Armie to scoff, but instead, he presses another kiss to Ben’s neck. “Tell me more,” Armie says, in that poured-honey way of his. The sticker’s still on his shirt, a little wrinkled now, bright and colorful against the plain black of his polo. 

“Oh, I don’t really know what else there is to tell,” Ben answers, his eyes closing. Maybe it’ll turn Armie on to see what an effect he’s having on Ben, maybe… “I just--this, right now. Is so good, you know? Being _adored_ , I can’t even describe it…”

Armie gives a hum-laugh-sigh, in perfect agreement. “It sounds like you need to be properly adored, then,” he responds, seeming to know exactly what to say to hypnotize him totally as he pulled Ben in for yet another kiss, his legs tight around Ben’s knees. “You just tell me what, that’s all you have to do...every inch of you kissed, maybe? Washed up in the shower, or the bath--maybe if you spend the night, we could do that in the morning? If that’s your thing, Ben…” He pulls away just enough to get a good look at Ben’s woozy, starstruck expression. “I don’t know what your thing is yet, though, so I couldn’t -- plan for it. I want you to let me know. And I’ll do that.”

“Are you, ah--are you asking me to stay the night?”

“I don’t have anything happening tomorrow, not until the evening.” 

“So I can stay, and we can--we can shower together, or…”

Armie’s hands go to Ben’s waist. “Of course we can. God, I can’t wait to see you naked, Ben. You could probably tell I was thinking it, I was making a full ass of myself, but I nearly blurted that out when we were waiting for the Uber outside of Miku.”

Ben laughs, the tension in his stomach both rising and somehow also broken -- _he wants to see me, wants to see me -- can’t wait to see me naked -- oh --_. “Not an ass. It was cute, and it wasn’t like you were driving. I’m glad. That you think so…”

“I’d say it was the beer talking, but that’s a lie. That’s just what I think.” Armie’s sly grin has returned. “So if you want, tomorrow morning, or tonight--if I don’t see you naked before then, that is...I’m going to kiss and touch you all over, Ben, you just w--”

A piercing series of beeps nearly sends them both leaping to their feet. “The cookies, fuck, I’m not burning them too--” He’s scrambling out of Ben’s lap with such panic that it’s really funny, and only the knowledge that Armie won’t see the humor in it keeps Ben from delaying him with another kiss or by pulling him into a bear hug. Instead, he watches Armie shove his hands into some novelty oven mitts shaped like lobster claws. “Jesus, Ben, sorry to jump like that, but I am determined to get one thing out of this oven that’s not fucked up beyond all repair.” He looks down at the tray, satisfied that none of them are ruined. “Will you forgive me?”

Ben crosses his arms, feigning irritation. “Convince me.”

“Damn it, these are for you, you know.”

“You promised me dinner,” Ben argues, as Armie crosses back over to the sofa, to settle back on top of him. 

“Tell me what you want and I’ll get it.” 

“Besides you?”

“That’s a given.” He pulls off the lobster claws and tosses them onto the coffee table, his expression suddenly serious. “Ben. I want you to know I mean this, I’m not just trying to -- buy your affection, or anything. I think you’re stunning. I’ve never seen anyone like you in real life, and you’re absolutely gorgeous, and smart, and -- outstanding. Know this.”

Ben feels his body go strange and light and wanting again. “Okay. I know.”

Armie’s eyes measure every ounce of him, sharp as nettle, sweet as syrup, and so focused and alive that Ben feels that same lovely sensation of being mesmerized. “No. I think you still doubt yourself.” He pulls open the GrubHub app on his phone. “But I’ll convince you. Now, tell me what you want to eat.”

**Author's Note:**

> My most recent giveaway fic! Have some classic Eva trademarks -- touch starvation, modern AU, plenty of fluff. Enjoy, my sweet peaches!


End file.
